FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT RAINFOREST - PAGE 2

A bill that would allow landowners to cut the Amazon rainforest and replant the land with eucalyptus while continuing to count it as forest "reserve" is expected to come to a vote this week in Brasilia, environmentalists said Monday. The measure, if passed, would represent the strongest effort yet to undercut Brazil's tough new environmental crimes law, which went into effect in September. That law, passed in February 1998, has for the first time allowed IBAMA, Brazil's leading environmental agency, to collect fines against powerful landowners who illegally cut the Amazon or coastal Atlantic rainforest.

By Rose Boccio. Special to the Tribune. Tribune staff writer Patrick Kampert contributed to this story | February 6, 2001

Most of the world's chocolate comes with an environmental price tag. The main ingredient in chocolate is the cocoa bean, which comes from the cacao (ka-COW) tree. In the wild, the cacao tree can be found growing under a canopy of trees deep in the rainforests of such areas as West Africa, Ecuador and Costa Rica. A small but growing number of farmers tend cacao trees like this. Environmentalists have found that, when grown in the rainforest, the cacao tree is not the only thing that flourishes.

Heat is on: Chicago-based Stone Container Corp.'s proposed $60 million wood chip mill in Costa Rica faces renewed scrutiny from the country's recently installed government, which has made environmental protection a priority. President Jose Maria Figueres' administration announced in early June that it would review the controversial project, which was approved by its predecessor. Environmentalists in Costa Rica, the U.S. and Europe say the project will disrupt some of the most biologically diverse rainforest in Central America.

Film, like any industry, is governed by trends. Following right on the heels of "At Play in the Fields of the Lord," "Medicine Man" seems to be a product of one of this season's major trends: rainforest chic. Rae Crane (Lorraine Bracco) is a biochemist sent to the Brazilian rainforest to check up on Robert Campbell (Sean Connery), a reclusive botanist "once of some note." When she arrives, she discovers Dr. Campbell has a problem: He's discovered a cure for cancer, but seems to have lost it. He and Dr. Crane must race against time and bulldozers to rediscover his miraculous find.

Ben & Jerry's Homemade Inc. is the last company many would suspect of stretching the truth. The ice cream-maker prides itself on social and environmental responsibility, so much so that it devoted a flavor-Rainforest Crunch-to saving the forests. For years, its label said money for the nuts "will help Brazilian forest peoples start a nut-shelling cooperative" and help argue against burning the rain forests. Actually, the now-discontinued label could be considered misleading.

The Merce Cunningham Dance Company will return in fall 2011 to the Dance Center of Columbia College, part of its "Legacy Tour" and final outings before disbanding forever. Cunningham, who died last July and whose close work with the dancers was integral to his artistry, preferred the company to continue only for a limited time after his death. The troupe played at the Dance Center, 1306 S. Michigan Ave., just last fall but will visit during the third leg of this farewell tour, returning Nov. 28-29, 2011.

There is more to Edvard Munch than "The Scream." So asserts a new exhibition at Boston College's McMullen Museum of Art, the first major retrospective of the Norwegian painter's work in the U.S. since 1978. Called "Edvard Munch: Psyche, Symbol and Expression" the show focuses on several themes: Boundaries of the Self; Flower of Pain; Flower of Love--Men and Women; Nature, Mysticism and Religion; Dramatic Images; Figures in the Void: Portraits; and Workers and the Land. It all comes down to love and death, really, as the memorable figure in "The Scream" seems well aware, but few artists penetrated this truth as clearly and expressively as Munch.

TODAY'S TOPIC IS: Famous Hollywood Celebrities Having Sex With Squid! Actually, that is not today's topic. I'm just trying to attract readers to today's actual topic, which is: The federal budget deficit. WAIT! Come back! This is an important topic! Especially if you are a young person, or belong to a future generation yet unborn. Boy, are YOU in for a surprise in a few decades! Ha ha! To help you understand what I am talking about, here's an explanation of the budget deficit in the "Q and A" format, which enables us to simplify complex issues, while at the same time wasting space: Q. What is the federal budget deficit?

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - You've heard of Sonic the Hedgehog, the video game character. But how about the half-pint hedgehog, the tiniest one that ever lived? Scientists on Tuesday described fossils from Canada of a hedgehog the size of a shrew about 2 inches (5 cm) long - that lived 52 million years ago in a rainforest in northern British Columbia during an especially warm time on Earth. The creature, Silvacola acares, lived roughly 13 million years after an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs and left the mammals as the dominant land animals.

The Bush administration has announced that it will allow the destruction of 1,700 acres of rainforest on public land in western Oregon despite the Endangered Species Act. Further, the administration requests that Congress allow the destruction of much of what remains of the ancient forests in the northwest. The excuse offered by the administration for all this is that it will save the jobs of loggers. The question is how long we will allow politicians to justify environmental destruction on the basis that people will be employed during the destruction process?